


Enjoying It Cautiously

by plinys



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: +1, 5 Times, Gen, Kink Meme, Onesided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Tauriel followed when Legolas called her name, and the 1 time she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enjoying It Cautiously

**Author's Note:**

> In response to [this](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/9471.html?thread=20714495#t20714495) prompt on the Hobbit Kink Meme. I kind of strayed from the prompt. Mostly I took the line "When Legolas said 'Tauriel' the last time, it sounded like he realized that she wasn't coming. And that kinda hurt." And ran with it, this is what happened.

1.

He’s not listening to his lessons, which is normally the first sign that they should stop for the day. It’s a process that Legolas had worked out years ago a surefire way to get his tutors to stop with the lessons, first he gets distracted ignores them, and then when this fact is pointed out, he puts extra effort into paying attention but it all the wrong ways, bemoaning about how he really doesn’t need to learn any of these things.

 A distressed tutor will normally give up halfway through, grumbling about the prince that couldn’t bother to pay attention and how something really must be done about it before they become more than princes. Legolas had cleverly pointed out in the past that they were all immortal so really he needn’t worry, but those comments never seemed to go over particularly well, and he was rather hoping not to get another lecture so soon.

This time though his lessons don’t make it that long, rather there is an interruption that throws everything off.

Another elf opens the door, he’s one of Legolas’ father’s personal guard, though he cannot remember the guard’s name, which is not particularly important. Not once Legolas notices who has entered with him, the little thing that clutches as his robes and ducks her head.

She’d a maiden clearly, about his age, possibly a bit younger, with auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders. Clearly a Silvan Elf by her features, not unlike the many that wandering the halls of his father’s palace, though there is something about this one that is different.

The way she hides behind the robes of the elf who opened the door, eyes slightly rimmed with red.

She’s sad.

“I have a new student for you, this is Lady Tauriel,” the guard says gruffly, “king’s orders.”

“Why,” Legolas asks, his boredom from earlier now replaced with curiosity.

“She’s to be his grace’s ward, until we find somewhere else to put her.”

“Why,” he repeats ignoring the frown of his tutor to fix his gaze on the maiden hoping that she will give him the answers he seeks. His father had not mentioned that they were taking someone new in, then again his father always seem far too busy to tell Legolas much of anything that was going on. 

“My papa died,” she hiccups.

“That’s impossible,” Legolas insists naively stubborn, “elves don’t die, we go to Valinor.”

The maiden looks at him taken aback before narrowing her eyes into a stubborn glare, “I do not lie,” she says sharply.

He can already see his tutor opening his mouth likely to tell the maiden to respect her manners, but Legolas elects to spare them both the lecture by speaking up sooner. “You must,” he refutes, and quickly noticing the stubborn look he continues, “however, I will elect to believe you.”

“Thank you,” she replies, though he can easily tell that she does not mean that at all.

Quite a confusing creature this one is. 

“What do we say,” his tutor says in a knowing tone and Legolas all but groans.

“I’m sorry for you loss,” he says though the words sound awkward and unfamiliar on his tongue.

He cannot hear what she grumbles back in reply, but he can already guess that it was nothing particularly please, and Legolas decides in that moment that he quite likes her.

“Tauriel,” he says, trying out the way her name sounds, trying for the authoritative tone that his father uses, he’s been working on mimicking the tone for quite some time.

“Yes, your highness,” she answers.

“I _am_ sorry,” he repeats, and watches with curiosity as the hint of tension disappears from her shoulder for the briefest of moments, before she stubbornly resumes her scowl.

 

2.

They’re supposed to be training or studying or something, Legolas isn’t even certain anymore. Honest he doesn’t exactly care.

His father is off who knows where visiting some dwarves or something and when Legolas had asked to accompany him he had been shot down far too quickly, something about still being too young, and insisting that he was nearly a hundred apparently didn’t count for much of anything.

So he’s a bit annoyed and bored and sick of being locked up in the palace. He has a hard enough time paying attention normally, but this time it’s even worse than usual.

Which is the reason why he turns to Tauriel and says, “we should sneak out,” in a conspiratorial tone.

“No,” she says, not even looking up from her book, for had she looked up she would have certain seen Legolas’ award winning pout that he had used to convince many others in the past, though not Tauriel. She had always been rather unaffected by his charms.

“It would be fun,” he offers.

“The king said that we are to stay inside the palace until he returns,” Tauriel repeats the same words that their tutor used earlier when Legolas has asked him if they could take their lesson out into the woods.

“You don’t really want to stay here,” he points out, seeing through her act too easily, “and neither do I.”

“It does not matter what I do or do not want.”

She’s trying to be a proper lady which is a real inconvenience, because Legolas wants to do something fun and she’s his best friend, it’s her _job_ to go along with his crazy schemes.

“So you _do_ want to sneak out,” Legolas latches onto what she doesn’t say.

He knows his words must have done the trick, because there is a flicker of something else on her face, of longing and eagerness to have some fun on such an otherwise boring day.

“We shouldn’t,” Tauriel objects, though from her tone he can tell that he has already won. “The king would get mad and I-“

“Tauriel,” he cuts her off quickly, using that tone that demands her attention, and her attention he recieves.

“Yes, your highness?”

“Quit arguing,” Legolas says reaching out to grab her hand and tug her along with him, “if we get in trouble I promise to take all the blame.”

Though he’s certain that they won’t get in trouble, not any trouble that he can get them out of with a bit of charm. He’s realized that he has a way of convincing people to forgive him for whatever imagined slights they seem included to blame him for.

The only person that ever seem to have put up any resistance is this particular maiden, though he knows that even her resolve cannot last for too long.

In fact, even now se frowns for the smallest of moments, before giving in, “if you insist,” a playful smile finding its way onto her features all too soon, betraying the truth of her feelings, “now what’s the plan?”

 

3.

There’s sound of a commotion of somewhere, and while these sorts of situations are not unusual they certainly peak his interest.

“Should you not be practicing your healing?”

He doesn’t need to hear much more than that to understand the situation. This wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence.

He cannot hear whatever she says in response to the other two, but he can imagine the sort of words that would be said. Telling them to mind their own business and that she’s better than all of them. Normally, the thought of such comments would bring a smile to his face, but now it causes the lines of a frown to settle on his face, because one quickly glance at the situation is enough to tell him that it will not end well without intervention of some sort.

Which Legolas supposes is his job.

“Tauriel,” he says sharply snapping her attention to him and away from her companions. She’s clearly upset, a battle waging behind those eyes. Legolas has faced her wrath before, though he had long since learned how to avoid seeing her anger.

When she finally responds, it’s in a low tone, biting back the words, she responds with the usual, “yes, your highness?”

He doesn’t have to say anything else, just arches a single eyebrow, and she storming off away from the others following over to where

“Did you need something,” she asks in a low and clearly displeased whisper when she reaches him.

“Train with me,” he offers.

“Fine,” she grumbles taking off in long strides away from him, it’s only once they’ve reaching the archery range that she seems to have calmed a bit more, though there is still tension in her shoulders, especially when she turns him after a few shots and says, “I could have handled them myself. I was handing things.”

“I know.”

 

4.

The patrols through the woods have gotten more _exciting_ lately, though exciting may not be the best word for it.

And Legolas was certainly rethinking his word choice once the orcs who had been hiding out in their woods appeared.

Slightly dangerous, but exhilarating.

That is until he’s surrounded and out of arrows.

Remorsefully he wishes that he had thought ahead and brought a blade along as back up. Though it is always easier to think what one ought to have done when looking back on things, or when surrounded by enemy combatants with nothing but a bow and worriedly contemplating how hard it would be to bludgeon an orc to death with one.

In a last ditch attempt he calls over the clamor of battle, “Tauriel,” too stubborn to add on a comment along the lines of ‘ _help me_.’

Though he need not have said as much in any case, because before the orc in front of him can make another move there is an arrow through his eye, and a voice right behind Legolas that says all too knowingly, “yes, your highness?”

Were the situation not so serious he would remark on her teasing tone and how that was hardly appropriate, but when she pushes a knife into his hands and takes out the orc on their left he find that he cannot argue with her tone, even if it is highly insubordinate.

Then again, those lines had been long since blurred between them.

“Don’t even start with me,” he grumbles finally so that only she can hear, before turning back to the matter at hand.

Though not before catching her light laugh and comment of, “but it’s so easy.”

 

5.

The festival is truly wonderful, the music and food just right, and he was quite enjoying the night.

 Or he would have been.

The problem was that guard duties must be kept up even on the night of festival.

Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem for as the prince Legolas would never be relegated those duties and could spend the night enjoying the company of those around him.

However, this became a problem when his usual companion, and dearest friend, was one of those who had been assigned the guard duties for the night.

It does not take too long before he finds himself at her side, smiling at her grimace upon noticing him.

“Dance with me,” he says in lieu of a proper greeting.

“I’m working.”

“Then stop,” Legolas simply says.

“Not all of us can shirk from our duties, your highness,” she says.

Other’s may have been offended by her words, and in fact, no other member of the guard would even dare to speak in such a way to him, but Tauriel says those words with a playful lit remise of times long past when they would play together as children.

“Everyone needs a break from time to time,” he objects, “the night is yet young, and the merry is making.”  

“I do not think that-“

“Tauriel,” he says, his tone about as pleading as it is going to get.

And he knows that he’s won the second she responds with, “yes, your highness?”

“Dance with me,” it’s not necessarily a command, though nor is it a question. He supposes if he was to find a way to classify the phrase it would be a wish.

A wish that she cannot seem to refuse for she gives in a moment later, “just one dance.”

“Just one,” Legolas agrees.

Though somehow one dance turns into two which turns into three and many more after that, and they both seem to forget that she was to be on duty that night rather than enjoying the festivities. She only seems to remember long after the celebration has died down and the light of their festive fires nothing more than warm coals on the ground.

“I must get back otherwise ,” she announces once the realization comes out,

“No need,” he casually remarks, “I already made excuses for you, in fact, you shall not be expected to be at your post until the morning.”

She arches a single eyebrow at him, “and when did you do that?”  

“Before I even asked you dance, of course.”

“You were so certain I would agree?”

“You have never refused,” he says with a touch of pride to his voice, “I foresaw no reason for this night to be any difference.”

He’s far too caught up in the moment, in the night itself, to wonder at the frown that tugs at the corners of her lips for the briefest of moments.

 

\+ 1

“Tauriel,” he says, and for once he doesn’t know her answer.

If he does know that he refuses to admit it.

Refuses to acknowledge how he doesn’t expect her to follow after him no matter how much desperate he is for that.

This is the part where she’s supposed to smile at him and say _“Yes, your highness”_ like she always has. This is the moment where she would choose him, follow him off to fight the orcs and save the town. Except for the first time since she came into his life interrupting his lessons she doesn’t grumble out her usual reply, she barely even looks at him for a fleeting moment, before turning her attentions to the dwarf of all things.

In the back of his mind he knew as soon as he said her name that she wouldn’t be coming with him, that something had changed. For the first time in nearly six hundred years Legolas wasn’t sure where they stood, he wondered where the stubborn girl he had grown up with had gone, the one he could always persuade to follow after him.

When had he missed her standing on her own?

The moment where everything changed.

The moment they were she no longer needed him. 

He doesn’t have time to muse on that, time to hesitate. There’s a town to save and he casts one look back over his shoulder, one last look for old times, for the times that were gone and past, before leaving the house and Tauriel behind. 


End file.
